Ellyse Perry
I think we all know who Ellyse Perry is by now, arguably the best female athlete in the country and certainly one of the most versatile. She’s put away the football boots for the time being to focus on the Southern Stars’ campaign against the White Ferns of New Zealand for the next couple of months.
A member of the national cricket team since she was 16, the now 21 year old fast bowling all-rounder talks about what drives her to succeed at an elite level in one of Australia’s favourite national sports:
“What really motivates me is just the challenge of getting better and then being able to achieve something you want to,” says Perry, who is known for her focussed training and preparation both with her team and in her private training sessions with her father. “Particularly in a sport like cricket, but in any sport, I don’t think you are ever as good as you can be.”
Revered for her bowling style and ability to deliver a ball at over 124km/hr, Perry explains on the field she looks to retaining her focus and rhythm, and considers the notion of fast bowlers being fiery or intimidating “as a bit of a stereotype”.
“There’s a particular spot on the pitch I always seem to look at. Regardless of what the batters are doing, or what the people on the field are doing, or people off the field are doing, or what the umpire is doing, you are sort of just acutely aware of what you are doing,” says Perry, who bowled the last over in the Commonwealth Bank Southern Stars defeat of New Zealand to win the ICC 2010 World Twenty20 title.
Cricket allows no room for resting one’s laurels on historical results, with Perry saying “it really is such a fickle game in that one minute you are on top and the next minute you can be completely destroyed in a sense by a batter.”
Irrespective of individual match results, Perry has a greater goal to pay what she perceives to be a debt to cricket legends such as Don Bradman. “I really want to uphold the traditions of cricket and in a lot of senses do proud the people who have played before us. Someone like Don Bradman, who is such a legend of the sport; you sort of feel indebted to him to do your utmost to continue the culture and tradition that has been so strong around cricket.”